Coloradoans grow many of the same cacti and succulents familiar to Tucson gardeners. But frost eight months of the year, hot summers and dry winters have fostered an entirely new garden paradigm. In Denver a trunked yucca grows alongside a fernleaf peony, or in another garden across town, next to a dwarf peach and a tall garden phlox. The Colorado gardener's willingness to incorporate new ideas without discarding the old has created a synergism between traditional garden design and the amazing diversity of plants that thrive in a high plains environment. The resulting gardens do not resemble anything heretofore - a style found only in the Mountain West.

Author of best-selling Perennials for Dummies, Marcia Tatroe writes the monthly "Mountain Garden Checklist" for Sunset Magazine, a weekly gardening column in The Denver Post, and is a frequent contributor to Colorado Gardener and other gardening publications. She has been gardening in Centennial CO for 25 years. Her garden has been featured in numerous books, magazines and nationally televised gardening shows. She lectures throughout the West focusing on garden design, perennials, xeriscape, and incorporating native plants into gardens and landscapes. In her most recent book, Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West, she advocates using drought-tolerant and native plants and indigenous materials to create a gardening aesthetic unique to this region.

This is our final speaker program for 2012 so please join in and welcome Marcia Tatroe as our guest on November 1. We will surely enjoy an excellent program, great foods, FREE plants and much more.